Lullabies of New York
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: Kevin, Mandy, Carson, and Melody are on a mission to save the subways of New York. But can they manage to do it before the whole city is destroyed?
1. The Beginning of the End

**A/N: Just going to start this for you all. It's not the best as of now, but I'm doin' it the best I can. Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I own Melody, Mandy, & Carson.**

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_'We got the words if you got the melody,  
We got the time if you've got the place to be  
No we're not gonna stop  
'til we set this party off'  
~'Set This Party Off', Jonas Brothers_

**The Beginning of the End**

It was good to be back with everyone again. It was good to be out in the open and to be on the road again instead of caged in the tiny town of Bellwood. Sure, I had Los Soledad and all those little side places, but nothing could make a guy feel free like the open road and a muscle car to drive it with.

Carson was ridin' shotgun with me while Melody and Mandy were sitting quietly in the back. The two were usually a couple of chatterboxes, a lot like Julie and Gwen when I was driving them to the mall.

A lot had changed. Trust had shifted. It was all quiet.

I had really gotten used to Ben's talking. He was the one who had talked like every second of the day, never shutting up even when I threatened him within an inch of his life. And he still kept on talking like a moron. So I had grown adapted to the natural chatter of people, even if it wasn't me talking. And with the seriously loud silence of no one talking, it was weird. So I cranked on the radio.

Carson's ocean blue eyes whipped to stare at me. "This thing has a _radio_?" he asked, shock rolling off his voice. His hair was a ruffled mess after sleeping in the backseat the night before. I'd already pulled us through a full twenty-four hours of driving. And I wasn't even tired yet.

I checked the rearview to find Mandy staring at me long and hard, shock written across her features. Melody didn't look at all surprised. "It's always had one," I told Carson.

"But you never, and I mean _never_, listen to music." His gaze flickered from me to the windshield again so he wasn't staring at me like Mandy was. "Really, never."

"You guys are being too quiet." I reached out and started flipping between stations to find something that at least sounded like metal. Or even hardcore rock. Anything to get some sound pumped into the car. Their silence was killing me. "I got used to sound instead of silence." I found one station just as they were introducing another song and settled back into my seat, eyes focused back on the nearly empty road. I didn't expect it to be crowded at like four in the morning.

A grin crept across Carson's face as he recognized the song. And he flipped up the volume to a higher level so that we could barely hear each other talk over the opening. "This is our song, boys," he laughed, leaning back in his seat and putting his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as if there were stars up there.

And I knew it all too well. This was one of the songs Carson and I had gotten horribly used to. So we were immediately all over it.

"I'm through with standin' in line at clubs I'll never get in, it's like the bottom of the ninth and I'm never gonna win. This life hasn't turned out quite the way I wanted to it be."

Me and Carson were practically brothers. We had worked as truckers for a while to cart some of Mandy's weapons back and forth between hideouts and he liked music but I didn't. And this song had been on every five minutes back when we were driving our way everywhere. Let's just say we were the kind of guys that picked up easily on it. And it was practically the story of our lives. So why not sing along? To break the silence and the obvious tension. It couldn't hurt.

"I want a brand new house on an episode of 'Cribs' and a bathroom I can play baseball in and a king-sized tub big enough for ten plus me."

"I need a credit card that's got no limit and a big black jet with a bedroom in it, gonna join the mile-high club at thirty seven thousand feet. I want a new tour bus full of old guitars, my own star on Hollywood Boulevard, somewhere between Cher and James Dean is fine for me."

Mandy and Melody were staring at us like we were a couple of lunatics. Which I didn't totally blame them for. "Come on," laughed Carson. And this was the guy who was my best friend. This was him, not the stiff serious guy. This was the real Carson.

"I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame. I'll even cut my hair and change my name."

Mandy and Melody had no idea what the heck we were doin' so I just let Melody's powers pick up on it while Carson and I carried on. But apparently Mandy knew the chorus. So we were all just rockin' like we were back in the subways, the world all our own and nothin' to do but have fun. Because this was our world now. And this was my home turf, not Bellwood. New York was freedom.

"'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars, livin' in hilltop houses, drivin' fifteen cars. The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap, we'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat and we'll hang out in the coolest bars, in the VIP with the movie stars; every good gold-digger gonna wind up there, every Playboy bunny with the beach blown hair. Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar."

Carson stared at me with that familiar grin. Story of our lives. We all just wanted to be something more. Maybe not rockstars, but we wanted to be considered more than street scum.

"Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar."

The music got cranked a little louder and I found Mandy's hand on the volume control this time. I checked the rearview to find a smile stuck on her face. My gaze flickered to Melody and she was already mimicking the voice of Nickelback's singer flawlessly.

"I want a big break like Elvis without the tassels, hire eight bodyguards that love to beat up assholes, sign a couple autographs so I can eat my meals for free."

Carson was just looking at me. He was grinning like crazy. This was how it used to be: every day we weren't fighting, it was a party. And parties were always good for us. We had a big crew; we were just considered to be the A-Team.

"I'm gonna dress my ass with the latest fashion, get a front door key to the Playboy mansion, gonna date a centerfold that loves to blow my money for me. Gonna trade this life for fortune and fame, I'd even cut my hair and change my name."

Mandy was back in with us again, loud as ever. And this was the life. This was one of the good times.

"'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars, livin' in hilltop houses, drivin' fifteen cars. The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap, we'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat and we'll hang out in the coolest bars, in the VIP with the movie stars; every good gold-digger gonna wind up there, every Playboy bunny with the beach blown hair. And I'll hideout in the private rooms with the latest dictionary and today's new Zune. They'll get you anything with that evil smile, everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial, well, hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar."

This was our lives, all wanting something more than what we had, not out of greed but out of wanting something more for ourselves, just to know that we were failures at everything.

"I'm gonna sing those songs that'll bend the censors, gonna bite my pills from a Pez dispenser, get washed up singers writin' all my songs, lip-sync 'em every night so I don't get 'em wrong."

I quietly smiled to myself. This was what I missed about Mandy and Carson and Melody. The way it could all just seem so natural and so warm all the time. But never peaceful. Never peaceful.

"Well we all just wanna be big rockstars, livin' in hilltop houses, drivin' fifteen cars. The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap, we'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat and we'll hang out in the coolest bars, in the VIP with the movie stars; every good gold-digger gonna wind up there, every Playboy bunny with the beach blown hair. And I'll hideout in the private rooms with the latest dictionary and today's new Zune. They'll get you anything with that evil smile, everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial, well, hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar."

Carson quietly turned down the radio just as the last line was dying and I was the last one singing. "Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar." 'Cause that's what we all wanted. Something more.

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**A/N: lyrics are a bit off, but I did the best I could. Please review so I'll write more sooner. Thanks for reading!**

**~Sky**


	2. Into the Battlefield

**A/N: I found the perfect song and just had to get to work. This song is the greatest quote ever for this fic. I adore it. Perfect. Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I own Melody, Mandy, and Carson. Everything else, not so much.**

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_'This ain't a scene, it's a goddamn arms race_  
_This ain't a scene, it's a goddamn arms race  
__I'm not a shoulder to cry on but I digress  
__I'm a leading man  
__And the lies I weave are oh so intricate, oh so intricate  
__I'm a leading man  
__And the lies I weave are oh so intricate, oh so intricate'_

_~'This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race', Fall Out Boy_

**Into the Battlefield**

My car isn't a hard one to pick out in a crowd. It's obvious. It's out there. It's a statement. That's why I loved it. Because it was all those things. It had the stripes and the personality and the pure awesome of the thing. It's just perfect. It's mine. It's why I love the thing.

Sadly, I had forgotten how recognizable it was in the world of New York's crowded streets. And for us, New York wasn't exactly like home. It was more of a war zone that we were put out to defend.

"Guys," said Carson after checking over his shoulder and looking in the rearviews multiple times through out the ride down the streets towards the subways that we had camped out in what felt like forever ago to me. "They're following us." He kept checking back multiple times in rapid succession. "Knights on our tail, Kev."

Mandy and Melody were ducking in the backseats so Carson and I could get better views. They both silently unbuckled and slid to the floor of the car, curling up there for safety purposes. Carson and I could hold our own for multiple reasons. His Vulpimancer half gave him tougher skin for some reason and the Anodite part of him had shields if totally necessary. And I didn't need to worry for anything except for my car. Bullet-proof glass is hard to find, but alien tech proof glass is nearly impossible to track down.

I kept working to check the rearviews to see Carson's massive navy blue SUV creeping up on us from behind. The wheels were spinning hard over the rough ground as only two or three cars separated us now. It was getting tight and we were going to be dead meat soon if we didn't lose them.

"Got a plan?" I asked Carson. He had one hand rubbing his temple and his glittering ocean blue eyes watched the rearview off the side of the car as the SUV crept in on us like a predator closing in on the prey that was cornered between a rock and a hard place. "You're the lead, I'm just drivin'."

His gaze flitted back over his shoulder one more time and he was muttering under his breath some quick calculations. "Got it. Take a right here and keep taking rights around these next few blocks for a while then take a left when we know they won't be able to make the light."

"Check." I pulled into the far right lane and started pressing the edges of the speed limit of the streets. Not surprisingly, the SUV followed, one car still separating us. "You sure about this? They close in and we're sitting ducks."

"We've got Mel," said Carson, kicking his feet up on the dashboard and leaning back into his seat. "Nothing beats Mel."

I checked over the seat to see Mandy and Melody still curled up on the floor of the car. Melody was looking up at me with scared eyes and I just gave her my best half-hearted smile before looking back to the blacktopped streets and tugging the car harshly around a tight corner.

And it was on.

"High gear," breathed Carson, eyes shut and his nose pointing up towards the ceiling. His breathing was methodic whereas I could feel my own heart pounding in my chest as adrenaline sank in. The chase was good. "Speed limits are screwin' with us," he continued as if all this were just some idle chat in a high-speed car chase.

"Mandy," I said quietly while pulling another turn around the corner, the tail of the car spinning out just a little bit, but I had full control over it, "can you see any weapons on 'em? Are they loaded?"

I checked the rearview, but all I could see were dark shapes before I had to look back to the road to turn again without going onto the sidewalk or going into the left lane. Mandy's head poked up from her hiding place. "Locked and loaded Octurian Plazer in the back, guys. It looks like it's modified to be smaller for the case at hand, being in a car and all, but that's definitely an Octurian Plazer."

She sank back down as I tugged the car around another hard corner. Because Octurian Plazers are not toys. They're not for little boys to be playing with. To be brutally honest, Mandy wouldn't even let me or Carson touch the one she used to have. Of course, Carson and I were always prone to breaking things, but really, we weren't _that_ bad…

"Start watching for the lights," Carson said, still calm in the passenger seat. A little smile was plastered across his face like he knew this would work no matter what. But that was Carson. He could be cocky whenever he wanted to be. "Gotta lose 'em there and gotta keep this car between us because they can't run a light without losing my SUV's credentials to the feds. It's bound to be one of the few cars they got without goin' totally illegal."

"No worries," I told him, already seeing a light nearing the end of it's term as a green glow. "This one'll get those suckers." I began to move towards the left hand lanes towards where we were going to pull a different turn. "Hang onto somethin'."

It flashed yellow and I gunned the engine. The car went flying and I held it strong until we were rounding the corner and the light behind us was just flickering to red, making Carson's SUV stop, the Knights unable to tail us without getting themselves pulled over or caught. Either way, we would've had a couple more of those gangbangers off our hands.

"Done," I said and Carson was already kicking his feet off the dashboard and checking on the girls in the back as they rose from their positions on the floor of the backseat. "They're lost." I checked the rearviews just to confirm. I didn't want anyone after us now that we could safely head back to the subway.

"Now we just gotta keep 'em out of our hair 'til we get back to the hideout." Carson's eyes flitted from street sign to street sign. "Alright, can I safely assume that you know where you're going?"

I eyed him with a thin smile. "You don't forget New York, Carson."

Mandy reached forward from her position in the back and flicked the back of my head, sending a little sting through my skull. "I have to say, your driving got worse."

And Carson just laughed at me like it was any other day.

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**A/N: Ah, the glory of researching. I had to find some sort of weapons… Octurian Plazer was the best I could do and I have no clue on the spelling. I did my best. So anyways, review or die!**

**~Sky**


	3. Underground

**A/N: Something is wrong with Microsoft Word… Kasta played with it and now… I don't know what's up. So… Yeah. Anyways, here comes another chapter of "Lullabies of New York". I finally know where I want to take this sequel. Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I own Melody, Carson, and Mandy.**

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_'Me and all my friends  
__We're all misunderstood  
__They say we stand for nothin'  
__And there's no way we ever could  
__Now I see everything is goin' wrong  
__With the world and those who lead it  
__We feel like we don't have the means  
__To rise above and beat it  
__So we keep on waiting, waiting  
__Waiting on the world to change'_

_~'Waiting on the World to Change', John Mayer_

**Underground**

I pulled the car into the small hidden lot we had secured by building a fence and rigging a small pulley system to pull up the fence so Carson and I could slide our cars right in without a problem. Mandy was the first one out, stretching her limbs from the long ride. Sure, it had taken us two days to make it, but I had been the only one driving and we had stopped twice to sleep and stock up on mountains of food. "Home sweet home," she breathed, arms stretching out towards the bright blue sky that loomed over our heads. "Good to be back, right Kev?"

Instead of saying anything, I just nodded, looking at how beat up the place looked since the last time I had seen it. The gravel was laced with small pellets of hail and the garbage on the side of the alley reeked like dead fish that had been left out for more than a couple of weeks. The whole place just looked run down but not in a ghost town kind of way.

Melody stepped out right before Carson who had been crammed against the dashboard while the girls frantically tried to haul themselves out of the backseat of my ride. Then they too shook out the soreness of their limbs.

It was like walking back in time to a distant memory. An almost haunting one. I had nightmares of this place. I had watched them all die. Just thinking of coming back here after they had all supposedly been consumed by flames… It was like staring into the eyes of my own worst enemy. "This place looks like you threw a party," I said, staring at the empty mouth of the subway's entry. It was pitch black in the abyss below. "I mean, it's just trashed."

"That's what we get for going after you," laughed Carson, coming up behind me and ruffling my hair before moving towards the gaping hole in the ground that led to our home. "You're worth it though, Kev. You were the only one we could think of that could help us." Then he leapt down into the open doorway that had once been the opening into an underground subway; now it was the home of a bunch of street rats.

Mandy was down after him, the sound of her worn sneakers squeaking against the concrete an easy sign of knowing she was down safely. Then Melody was following closely behind her; she smoothed out her dress for a long moment before taking one step over the edge and falling into the darkness, her ivory and ebony hair visible until she dropped into the black hole that led to what we could only call our home.

I looked over my shoulder at the car before turning back, taking a deep breath, and letting myself plunge into the consuming darkness, air whirling around me like a tornado's whipping winds.

"Good to see you still know how to fall with style," remarked Carson as he flipped on lights to shoo the shadows to the corners of the massive underground station. "You always knew how to land."

I was crouched down low to the floor, one hand on the cold concrete and my combat boots pressed firmly to the icy ground. I hadn't fallen, but I wasn't exactly a natural at diving into the pit anymore since we knocked the stairs out to prevent intruders. So far, it had worked pretty damn well.

"Can we safely assume the Knights know nothing about this?" asked Mandy, pushing her way to the bedroom that the girls had once shared that Carson and Mandy had had to share after a while of me and Melody just wanting to be closer for longer. "I mean, it looks trashed, but it's been worse when I've left the boys alone for the weekend."

Carson and I share a love of parties. It's instinctive.

"They didn't get to it," said Melody as she crashed on the couch to check the tv to see if it was still operational or not. The thing was temperamental most of the time. "I had to lie so you guys wouldn't be mad."

"Fair enough," retorted Carson curtly. His face was slightly twisted up in anger, but not enough that anyone would truly notice. Melody was a people person, but she was incapable of reading people the way Mandy and I had been trained to. "But you really should've stayed. Could've saved Kevin all the chick drama."

"Did I make a difference?" Melody asked, blackened orbs narrowed to slits in Carson's general direction. He knew too; I could see the hairs raised on the back of his neck and the anger making the slits on his neck fan up and down a bit in a pathetic attempt to tame the beast. "I got him here, didn't I?"

"Mel, orders are orders," I said, interrupting the conversation before one of them said something they would regret. "When someone tells you to do something, you're supposed to listen." I let my gaze throw daggers in her direction. Her face seemed a bit taken aback by my intrusion into the moment. "They're your superiors. It's law around here."

New York makes hard, cold people. It makes monsters of men. New York is war. Carson was the ringmaster. It was his job to keep on top of us, to keep breathing down our necks all for the prosperity for our cause. We were the only ones capable of taking down an entire organization that was hell-bent on destroying the streets of the city. For good.

Mandy was all up over me. She had randomly just jumped on my back and started giving me a serious noogie with her legs wrapped around my waist and one arm with a death grip around my throat. "That's the good Kevie we love!"

"You're hurting… my head…" I coughed as I found myself unable to take a breath for a few seconds.

She dropped off of my back and her brown tinted eyes stared at me for a long moment as I turned around. "Boy, you missed a ton."

"You oughta go up to the landline and check in with Bryce and the girls," suggested Carson as he began to rummage through the rooms that had once been ticket booths nearly a whole lifetime ago. "It'd be good to hear that we got our leading man back."

"I'll call 'em in a little while." I pulled up the folding chair that we had hauled from a dump on the southern side of the massive city. The dumps were our scavenging grounds. "For now, you guys need to catch me up on the world around here."

Carson just laughed for a long moment as he kicked his feet up on the coffee table. "Who wants to start?" he asked to no one in particular.

No one responded, but Mandy pulled up another chair beside me.

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**A/N: More details to come next chapter. This is all in my head now. Time to get it out. But seriously, review if you're reading this. I don't want to feel like a moron for writing something that no one's reading.**

**~Sky**


	4. Us Against the World

**A/N: Okay, I got this. Don't panic. I have a… a plot. Yes. Wow. I'm as shocked as you are. Let's crank it out now.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything.**

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_'It's us against the world_  
_Whenever you're near there is no fear_  
_Feels like there's nothing I can't do_  
_You make me feel strong_  
'_cause its here with you that I belong'  
__~'Us Against the World', Play_

**Us Against the World**

I let my eyes rake through the subway station, trying to formulate an answer that would work for him. There were plenty of them, but none that would make a ton of sense.

The walls of dirty stone surrounded us and a tarp sat folded up in case of severe rains and we had to close the entrance off to keep the place from flooding. The kitchen was off to the left of the opening in the roof as I looked at it from across the room, sitting practically across from the only doorway in and out of our home that didn't lead through the subway tunnels of darkness. The couch was right across from the opening and the tv was placed in front of that on a nearly broken table that Kevin and Carson had spent nearly two days patching up from the dump. Off to my left was the room Kevin and Melody had once shared and that I would soon be sharing with the brilliant singer; to the right was the room the boys shared. Both had originally been ticket booths back when the subway station had been functional, but we had adapted them to suit our needs.

"Kev, they have every weapon imaginable from the range of Galvan arms to Appoplexian weapons," I told him quietly, trying to give him a solid answer. I folded my fingers together and kept my eyes on my hands.

"And Appoplexians use sticks and still manage to kill each other," pointed out Carson, eyes closed and feet kicked up on the coffee table that we had splayed out in front of the couch that Kevin and Melody sat on, each at opposite ends.

"Exactly," I sighed, my gaze flitting from my hands to him and then back to my hands again. "I mean... before, it was bad. Multiply it by ten and add in more tech. They're bigger, faster, smarter, stronger..." I shook my head, unable to keep the dread from sinking into my body. I felt like I was drowning in all this misery that New York seemed to shove on me. It just seemed to get depressing just by being here.

"So we're looking at... an all out civil war..."

I nodded, my gaze not even finding Kevin. I didn't want to look at him. He knew we were screwed, we knew we were screwed and yet we were still choosing to fight an impossible battle.

"Damn," breathed Kevin. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned into the worn down couch that creaked under the weight of all his muscle. "This is..."

"It's serious shit, man." Carson stood up, unable to keep himself in one position for very long without getting edgy. "This isn't for rookies. Those punks you were playing with, they didn't know what the hell they were trying to get themselves into."

My eyes found Carson and I heard Kevin stand up too off to my left. "Dude, they beat me back when I was a monster. If anyone could win this, it's them, not me." The disappointment was clear as day in his voice. "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad back in Bellwood?"

Carson was clearly getting angry. His steps were faster and his fists were clenched. "Kev, we can't just start lettin' outsiders in. This is our home, this is our turf, New York is ours." His eyes sent daggers the color of rolling waves in the ocean in my younger brother's direction. "Outsiders don't belong in our home."

"This is suicide!"

"I'd rather die this way than with a couple of punks to save our hides." Carson was just infuriated. I wanted to step in and pull them away before they had grips on each others throats, but I stayed quiet. "This isn't a game, Kev. This is war."

"Let's just move." Kevin stood up. "I'll take Mel and head over to Bryce's place and pick him up before hitting up the launch pad, 'kay?" He shoved one hand in his pocket and pulled out his keys, giving them a little jingle to show Carson he was leaving. "I'll see what surveillance I can get from the girls and come back from there." Kevin nodded in Melody's direction, and she rose to her feet like a ghost; the girl didn't make a single noise.

I glanced to Carson who didn't even look interested in the slightest. He just kept walking around in the same circle, hands at his sides and mind distracted. That was what he did when he didn't want to talk but was also trying to think.

Kevin moved around the couch, Melody close behind him. I stayed in my chair. Kevin boosted Mel up and out of the hole that was forever sliced into our ceiling. His superhuman strength sent her up over the edge easily. Then he gave me one last solemn look before grabbing onto a few faint handholds that were cut into the wall and hauled himself up with a little help from Melody near the top of the wall. We were lucky the stairs hadn't been cut very deep or else I would have a lot of problems with getting out without the help of one of the guys.

It was a few seconds later when the car's purring engine started up and the quickly vanished into the mesh of growling cats running through the jungle of New York's streets.

"What does he think he's doing?" asked Carson the second Kevin's engine's sound had gotten out of the range of our hearing. "He can't expect a couple of amateurs to jump in here and save our tails without totally annihilating our honor." He crashed into the spot Kevin had been sitting in moments ago, his body laying out across the shredded cushions. "Kevin's out of it. They all played with his head. Melody. The Tennysons. They all ed him up. He's not right anymore."

I had to lean down and put my head in my hands. "I thought he could fix things," I said, trying to keep from cracking. The two guys I cared about most were already fighting. Maybe it was just that Kevin grew up. Or maybe it was just because Carson really didn't like having to go to him for problems that he thinks he should be able to fix himself.

"And now he and Melody are going to be tense all the time." My older brother drank in a deep breath of the dank air as his eyes surveyed the station we had made our home in. "That girl... She was trouble from the start, Mandy. She was trouble from the start."

I managed to get to my feet despite being so exhausted. "Nothing we can do about it now, Car," I told him gently, heading over towards the kitchen area Kevin had put together for us out of slabs of wood and some rock he had morphed into the right shapes. It was small and only had enough cabinets to hold a couple of cups we had picked out of dumps and a sink and a few of my smaller weapons that I didn't have space for in my room. We usually lived off of paper utensils and such. What Kevin had given us was a luxury. "We'll just have to rough it out like we do everything else."

"We can't have to watch our for her to stab us in the back, babe," he said, pushing his way towards the kitchen alongside of me. He wasn't going to let this drop so fast. Carson kept perfect pace so he was never so much as a step behind me. "I don't want to have to worry about a traitor every step of the way."

I turned on the sink and let the sound of the water soothe me. Not like we had bills. Carson had hacked us into a couple of the pipes from the building above us. Just letting the water run felt so good. "You're an Anodite," I mentioned, trying to let the tension ease out of my muscles while I leaned against the sturdy counters. When Kevin and Carson were mad, I couldn't help the stress that boiled in my veins. "You play with her the way she plays with Kev. Read her mind while she sleeps and check to see if she's telling the truth about her sister or not."

"I still don't like it."

I sighed and turned off the sink, glad that Carson could see things my way. "Suck it up," I told him while heading off to the room we had shared to take my things out and move them to the other side of the subway station where Melody and I would be sharing a room now that she was not longer romantically involved with my little brother. "Be a big boy, Car." I fingered the ends of my frayed blonde hair while heading into the structure that functioned as a bedroom. "Grow up so you can fight this like a man. Gotta remember one thing: us against the world."

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**A/N: Ah, I'm especially happy with this chapter. Hope the description of the subway was good enough for ya. I tried to manage. So anyways, review please. Thanks for reading!**

**~Sky**

**P.S. Anyone see MandyxCarson? I personally, don't know what to think of those two. I love 'em, but I'm not sure exactly.**


	5. To Build a Team

**A/N: I decided that I needed to update this one. Please be patient. It's the first time I've been able to get on a computer for fun in two whole days. Driving and school have been taking their toll on me.**

**Disclaimer: I own Mandy, Carson, and Melody and everyone else who is not in the Ben 10 series. You are not allowed to use them without my permission.**

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'_If everyone cared and nobody cried  
__If everyone loved and nobody lied  
__If everyone shared and swallowed their pride  
__Then we'd see the day  
__That nobody died'  
__~'If Everyone Cared', Nickelback_

**To Build a Team**

"You should've told me it was this bad," I hissed, trying not to be mad at Melody. She wasn't even supposed to be in Bellwood in the first place. So I couldn't pin all the blame on her. "This isn't even possible anymore. We're walking in on an ambush by just entering the city limits. You saw our welcoming party."

"It's gotten worse since you left," she said from her position in the passenger seat, legs folded neatly beneath her petite frame. "Everything collapsed after the fire. Mandy and Carson are having a hard time keeping the team together. I'm going solo half the time without my partner." Her eyes noticeably narrowed in my direction, a playful glimmer in them. "And everyone else just ripped at the seams. You were the rock that held us all together. And I don't mean that literally or anything."

I winced at the thought of those licking, lapping flames surrounding the people who had taken me in and the girl who I had once loved. They had watched me run away. I could've saved them. The rest of her words were virtually lost on me. "It took a turn for the worse," I remarked, leading the car down the dark side alleys of the city to get to the apartments just south of our hideout where one of our head contacts kept his place. "I've never gotten a reception party so early from the Knights."

"But this car has definitely seen enough of those." A soft laugh came from Melody, her black eyes flickering to me for a moment as she moved stray strands of her ivory hair behind one ear and out of her face. "It's been blown up... what, nine times?"

"Plenty more since then," I commented, watching the apartment building rise up in front of me. The whole thing was made of old brick. Rotting shutters were hanging on the sides of the windows, some of them even missing. The place was a meth-head's home and one of the best places to find intel that anyone could ever get. It was a sacred haven for those who knew how to use it properly. Lucky for me, Mandy had a guy who knew a guy whose cousin knew a guy that hooked us up with this place. The girl gets around...

"You go get him," I said, neatly swinging the car to a stop on the side of the street where there was no risk of getting slammed into with another car. "I'll wait here for you."

Without another word, Melody disappeared into the beat down building, her white hair flashing in the faint rays of light that pierced the overcast clouds that hid the crystal blue sky. I leaned back in my seat, thinking everything over.

Gwen had expected me to call about two hours ago. Had I? Not yet. I made a mental note to check in with her later.

And Carson and Mandy... They had changed. Carson was so much more serious. He wasn't even a shell of his former self. Carson had become someone else entirely. Mandy was still perky, but something was wrong with her. I could tell. Her eyes were darker than ever and she seemed almost haunted in the way she did everything. The only time she ever seemed like the girl I knew was when she was smiling, and she hadn't smiled a whole lot lately. I was worried for her.

Melody never changed much. She was quieter, but what else could I expect? It was an awkward position that she had put herself in, getting between me and Gwen and trying to break us apart so dangerously. I didn't blame her for being quieter. How could I?

Melody made her way back out of the building about ten minutes later, a little more bounce in her step. My old buddy followed her out, tousling his own hair to make it look messier. He hated having it look good. "Kevin, man, I thought you were dead!" he laughed, falling into the backseat of the car and slapping a hand on my shoulder.

"You couldn't get lucky enough," I snorted with a smirk, kicking the car back into gear and revving the engine so we were sent flying down the streets. The wheels tore across the asphalt, the sheer power of my car showing in every aspect of the ride.

"Naw," Bryce laughed, "I couldn't get that lucky. I owe you too much cash for gambling to have you wind up dead." His hand was retracted from my shoulder, and he sunk into the leather seats again. "So what have you been up to, bud? Kidnapping princesses? Dealing drugs? Selling counterfeits?" His arms folded behind his head as he kicked his feet up on the console, dirty shoes clear evidence that he had been busy with some work.

For some reason, Bryce always reminded me somewhat of Carson. They probably could've been distant brothers. I wouldn't have known the difference. Bryce had the same messy hair as Carson except in a shade of light brown. He had the thin and scraggly physique that no one usually liked, but Bryce was able to make it look good in his loose t-shirts and baggy jeans. He could've looked like a hobo too if people didn't see him right. Of course, Carson had more meat on his bones in comparison to Bryce, but their faces were nearly identical in every other aspect.

"Plumbing," I told him.

He just laughed. "Dude, ferreal?" he asked, Brooklyn accent shining through. His natural roots were always shining through.

"Yeah. Saved the universe twice with the Tennysons. Saved Earth solo once." My response was enough to keep him quiet for the rest of the way to the surveillance hideout. "So yeah, I've been plumbing." And I was relieved that he was quiet. Bryce almost had a bigger mouth than Ben half the time.

The car door slammed shut as Melody got out seconds after I had pulled into the spot just outside the tiny concrete building with metal reinforcements within the thick walls. Bryce followed her out quickly and I finally rose out of the driver's seat, stepping out into the parking lot. "This place hasn't changed as much as the rest of New York," I commented.

"This place hasn't changed since the day we found it," pointed out Melody, already at the door and holding it open for me and Bryce. My friend stepped in first. I followed close behind with Melody right behind me. She stayed close.

It took about two seconds for the girlish screams to kick in after the two massive black chairs had turned around to see who had come in. "KEVIN!"

Let's just say that I'm a hot item 'round the streets. Melody was lucky that she came when she did. I could've been gone if she had turned up any later.

My two favorite little hackers grabbed me in hugs. For being a couple of hot twenty-year-old twin brunettes, Amanda and Bethany acted more like they were seven. But I liked that. In a world of war and death, it's comforting to see people run around like little kids. Carson used to be that way too. But not anymore.

"Of course, I don't get that sort of reception," muttered Bryce from behind me, letting out a bit of an upset grunt. I saw the room's surveillance in one of the monitors mounted upon the largest wall and his arms were folded across his chest, bur I could see a soft smile playing across his lips. Melody was hiding in the shadows of the room while I was being attacked by hugs.

Yes, New York was home. And this was my family.

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**A/N: And that's everyone. Btw, a lot of you have already been predicting the future… Keep on reviewing! Thanks for reading everyone!**

**~Sky**


	6. Like Last Time Around

**A/N: I decided that this needed to be updated. Really, really needed to be updated. This one is Melody's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I own Melody, Mandy, Carson, Amanda, Bethany, and Bryce. Long list right there… Everyone else is by MOA.**

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_'How did you get here under my skin?_  
_Swore that I'd never let you back in._  
_Should've known better than tryin' to let you go_  
_'cause here we go go go again._  
_Hard as I try I know I can't quit,_  
_Something about you is so addictive._  
_We're fallin' together,_  
_You think that by now I'd know_  
_'cause here we go go go again'_  
_~'Here We Go Again', Demi Lovato_

**Like Last Time Around**

"So how are you two doing?"

My head literally jolted up like I had been shocked with a thousand volts of electricity. My eyes were on the back of Kevin's head as his fingers froze on the keyboard he had been working at alongside of the twins. He said nothing. Needless to say, I kept my mouth shut for a few seconds.

It was such an innocent question. Bethany had no idea how she was pretty much stabbing me with a dagger and drowning Kevin in guilt with just those six words. Because we knew she didn't mean it in a literal sense. She didn't want me to go say, "Oh, we're good. Kevin and Carson got into a fight today and I was under the weather yesterday, but we're better now, no biggie." No, she wanted to know how _we_ were doing. As in both of us. As in together. As in the two lovebirds they always knew.

I'm just going to say that the silence got awkward really fast. Kevin didn't keep typing so it really was that really quiet quiet moment.

"Alright," said Bryce after heaving a sigh and pushing off the wall he had been leaning against, "what did we miss?"

Kevin turned around in the chair, staring at me where I stood, lingering in the doorframe with one shoulder against the wood and my body practically at a forty-five degree angle with the floor. "That's a good question, Beth," Kevin said, his dark eyes glittering with untold words and hidden messages that I knew how to read. We had been together _way_ too long... "How are we doin', Mel?"

Great. And he was leaving it up to me to decide what front that we were going to use as a cover. Yeah, he's an idiot. Not just becau- Oh, wait. It clicked in my head like someone had thrown a brick at my head. We both had different opinions on this back in Bellwood and he had known mine all along. Leaving it up to me meant he was doing things my way for once.

I pushed off the frame of the doorway with a little bit of fancy footwork and the toy that I like to call physics and pranced my way over to him. A thin smile raced across his lips, sitting there sweetly as I sat on his lap like we had before all the drama set in. And before he'd left us to die.

"We're fine," said Kevin, raking his thick fingers through my white and black hair. His eyes watched mine for a reaction, but I gave none.

"I was wondering why you guys were keeping your distance," said Amanda from the left side of Kevin once he turned around his chair to face the keyboard again. He let his fingers fly across the letters and numbers once more, the screen racing to keep up with his lightning fast pace. "I mean, you guys had all the puppy-love going last I checked and then now Melody was practically trying to keep as far away from you as possible. I just didn't want anything to be wrong."

"And I got your twin-telepathy call and decided to ask," chirped Bethany in that annoyingly sweet voice of hers.

Let's just say that I never really liked these two. Just my opinion, but they're a couple of morons when it comes to dealing with what Kevin and I deal with everyday. Drama. Knights. The usual stuff. Bombs. More than once, I have had to diffuse one... Kevin showed me how to do that.

"Nothin' to worry about," assured Kevin, taking one hand away from the keyboard and wrapping his deliciously muscular arm around my thin little waist as he pulled me a little tighter to him. "Mel and I are good." His other hand went to the mouse to keep working as he kept his arm around me.

This was what I liked about Kevin. He was able to lie convincingly and still get away with virtually anything. Of course, Carson and Mandy and I always knew when he was lying due to the fact that we had clearly lived with him for too long. And once or twice, he had been able to pull a fast one on us and actually get us to believe one of his lies. It was rare, but it did happen. And now I was wrapped in the middle of one. Not like I minded or anything...

"Back on topic," urged Bryce, coming from his side of the room and putting his hands on the back of Amanda's chair. "What do we have for surveillance?"

"Knights in subways," began Amanda.

"Knights in apartments," continued Bethany.

"Knight at bars."

"Knights in nightclubs."

"Knights stealing tech."

"Knights robbing banks."

"Knights are pretty much everywhere," concluded the two at the same time, voices chiming together.

I really, really felt compelled to hit them both. Really.

"It's like they've mass-produced," said Kevin, immediately taking his hand away from my lithe waist to get back to work on the keyboard. "Do we have any idea how they're getting so many people? Clones or rallies or kidnapping? Something crazy. It has to be."

Both brunette girls had their fingers flying across the keyboards that they sat at with Kevin in the middle of the two. "I got a list of missing people reported in the past two months," said Amanda, sliding her chair over to the printer that was on one side of the room. "And Beth just got us the list of pieces on cloning devices that can be found within a hundred miles of the city limits."

"I can get you any info on rallies, just say the word," said Bryce, having taken his hands off of Amanda's chair as she rolled away and was now working on another computer that was set aside for the sole purpose of social networking. He had to be kept in the loop.

"Word," Kevin said leaning back in the chair and once more holding me tightly.

Bryce was working as Amanda rolled her way back over towards where Kevin and I were curled up in the chair. "Here's your paperwork," she said, bright cheery smile making me want to hit her. "Now go run off and give Mandy a hug for me 'cause we love her and do something fun."

"All fun and no play makes for an unhappy day," Bethany chimed in on our left as Kevin politely nudged me off his lap with one hand. "So you guys go get it on or something, okay? You're, like, boring today."

Kevin looked at me before rising out of the chair right after I had. "We got work to do," he said, taking my hand in his as he gave a short wave to Bryce.

Bryce was already working, his contacts and sources bringing in intel of the rallies or group gatherings within Knight territory. He didn't even wave back.

"You guys get him home for me?" asked Kevin, looking to the twins who both nodded eagerly with the same pretty smiles that drove me insane. "Cool." In one hand, he held the papers Amanda had given him. In the other, he held my hand. Good day or bad day? I declared it a victorious day. Because even though it was a lie, I had Kevin again. That was all I ever wanted.

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**A/N: Hmm… I was hoping it'd be longer, but whatever. Reviews make me smile!**

**~Sky**


	7. Some Serious Stuff

**A/N: Decided to get working on this fic a little harder. Yeah, I'm actually trying. Crazy, right? Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10, but I do own all of my OCs. You are not allowed to use them without my permission. And I don't own lyrics at the beginning of the chapters. Just so ya know.**

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'_Bank robbers and killers  
Drunks and drug dealers  
Only crazy people  
Fall in love with me'  
__~'Crazy People', The Wreckers  
_

**Some Serious Stuff**

"I'm not sure if we fight better together or not," I said to Melody as she put her chin in her palm, "but let's just hope Gwen doesn't get wind of this or you'll probably be dead within the hour."

Mel, being the totally unreceptive girl she was, shrugged and blew off the comment like it was a fly in her face. "I'm pretty sure I can take down your girlfriend, Kev." Her other hand played with a few strands of her ivory hair. "As long as she treats you right, I'll be fine with you picking her over me."

Yeah, I felt guilty. Melody still wasn't exactly over everything. She was always the one to seek out vengeance when I had known her before. And she had been trying to find me this whole time. So… I was kind of worried. It was Melody. I loved the girl but not in the same way as I did before. She was more like a sister than before. Or an annoying ex-girlfriend that had decided to stay friends. Yeah, that's probably it.

"Mel, we are not having this conversation."

Her eyes didn't find mine like I was hoping they would. Because I was kind of wanting to talk about this, actually. Which is really not me. I would never want to talk about gushy emotions and all that shit. It's not my style. I like talking, yes, but I like smack talk and bad mouthing. Not feelings and "Oh em gee, did you see Becky's butt?" Yeah, that's not me. Don't even think about it.

And I listened to my words in my head. Sounded a lot like Gwen after our little Charmcaster trouble… Damn, that girl grew on me. I probably should've called her. Like, two hours ago. I figured she'd kill me when I did get ahold of her. Fair enough, right?

"Kevin, we have company."

Melody's slightly panicked voice drew me out of my thoughts and memories of all those times I had with Gwen. Because she was on my brain and when she was on my brain, she was hard to get off. Especially when I was away from her. I missed my spunky little redhead. What I did not miss was her punk cous-

"Kevin, seriously, they have lasers."

"Damn, okay, um…" I checked the mirrors and saw Carson's large, dark blue SUV right behind us, lasers coming out of the now rolled down windows and pointed right at the back window. One of them was pointed at my head, the other at Melody's. "You have a plan?" I asked, the words spluttering out as I floored the pedal, putting a few car lengths between us and the Knights that had decided to play cat and mouse.

Her stunned black orbs found me, her face clearly fearful now. "You're supposed to have the plan! You're the plan guy, not me! I do what you say, remember? That's how it works!" Her voice was a little higher pitched than usual and her eyes were blazing with a scared glow of fire behind them. "I don't do plans, Kevin! You do plans!"

Ben. That bastard. Stopped me from making plans. Totally screwed over my plan-forming abilities… "Okay, let's think: what arsenal do we have?"

"ARSENAL?" squealed Melody as she watched the lasers poke out of the windows once again, the distance closing between us on the less crowded back streets of the city. "Kevin, we need to run if you can't come up with anything and we need to run fast!"

Stupid plan-forming abilities… Always being repressed… Stupid Benji… I actually missed the guy. Just a little bit. A really, really little bit. Only a smidgen.

"KEVIN!"

A laser took a massive chunk out of the blacktop on Melody's side of the road and I had barely swerved enough to avoid it. "Okay, just stick your head out the window-"

"I'm not a dog, Kevin!" she insisted, hair fluttering as I rolled down the window for her, wind whipping at her hair and getting it to stream past her heart-shaped face and into her dark eyes and between those thin lips of hers. "I am not sticking my head out a window just so you can laugh at me again!"

Don't ask about the "again" part.

"Melody, stick your freaking head out that freaking window and scream, got that?" I commanded, fiercely trying to avoid the red-hot beams that shot past my car, trying to rip the metal and kill me and Mel. Because what could be better than getting rid of my car, me, and Mel all in one shot? Absolutely nothing for those dumbass Knights.

She stared at me like she was confused for a second, slight puzzlement splaying across her innocent features as her brows knit together. Then she blinked a few times, realization dawning on her mind like a new day. Then she stuck her head out the window, hair flying in her face as she looked back at the SUV that was tailing us. And she screamed bloody murder.

I watched in my rearview mirror as the windshield of the SUV shattered into millions and billions of pieces as the sound that passed from Melody's lips hit it. All those shattering pieces, still in motion, flew into the passenger compartment of the car, splattering the passengers, Knights, with the sharp shards of glass. I could see flecks of blood and a few dribbles of crimson on their skin but that was all I could look at before I had to put my eyes back on the road.

Melody ducked back in the window. "Keep going. I got them good enough so that they can't tail us." She ran a delicate hand through her ivory and ebony locks, straightening out the worst of the sudden tangles that had formed with all the wind whirling through her hair.

With a quick tug, I led the car around a corner, still keeping up my speed. The SUV kept going at a strange angle before smashing into a light pole, going right through the metal and then smashing into the building that was behind that light pole. I could hear the sickening crunches of metal and the screams of mutilated bodies before the final kiss of death took them. "Have you ever noticed how merciless we can be sometimes?"

Her gaze found me for a brief moment as she glanced in my direction a bit of wariness planted upon her features. "Kevin, you know it's this way for a reason. The game we play is for life or death." Melody finished putting the last of the stray white strands of her beautiful hair back into place. "It's either us or them, Kev. We both know that when it comes down to it, we're all crooks in this world, but they're killers. We kill them or they kill us and everyone else. Take your pick."

I let the car cruise the rest of the way to the hideout we had made our home. Because she was right. Us or them. "This is some serious stuff."

"Some serious shit," she corrected with a sly smile as she got out of the car once I pulled into the hideaway, taking the files Bethany and Amanda had given us. "We've gotten ourselves into some serious shit, Kev." The door slammed and she pranced off to the opening in the ground, dropping into the darkness like Alice down the rabbit hole.

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**A/N: There's another chapter. Reviews are much appreciated!**

**~Sky**


	8. Trace

**A/N: Sorry that this one is so short. I just wanted to get a little piece between the drama and such. So yeah. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Do not own quote or Kevin. Everyone else, yeah, I do own them.**

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_'It was a thousand to one  
And a million to two  
Time to go down in flames and I'm taking you  
Closer to the edge'  
~'Closer to the Edge', __30 Seconds to Mars_

**Trace**

I saw Kevin hit the floor harder than he probably should've before getting up and brushing himself off with the back of one hand. "You are off your game, man," I commented as Melody slid the folder onto the island of the kitchen. "Gotta get back in the rhythm, dontcha?"

He gave me a slightly menacing glare before picking a little pebble of rocky gravel from his black shirt and making his way over towards Mandy and I were conferencing over the papers Mel had brought over. "Not like I've been doing any psycho acrobat routines lately or anything," he said, a touch of sarcasm hanging onto his tone. He leaned against the counter opposite of me and Mandy as we let ourselves dive into the information that we always got from the girls.

"Didn't expect you to," I remarked right back before pulling a few photographs out of the small, cream-colored folder that held the data of recently missing persons. "Not like your built to be an acrobat or anything."

The voice of reason, Mandy, decided to butt her way in. "Guys, quit being a couple of assholes and focus." I glanced up from the photos to find her somewhat hazel eyes flickering between the two of us and she was reaching for a holster that was just a few steps away. Knowing Mandy, she could've gotten to it and stunned (or killed) us both before we could even grab each others throats.

Kevin grumbled a quick "Fine" and I snorted my agreement. I let my gaze fall back to the pieces of paper that were in my hands. Names, numbers, dates, colors, records. It was all just a blur. I looked to Melody to see her shuffling a phone out of her pocket, the slight buzzing of a vibration from the small device hitting my ears. And it was all blending together again. Blending into forms and shapes and colors.

My focus has been anywhere but where it should be lately. Between my powers going haywire half the time and the general drama of living, things haven't been going in my favor exactly. The lines of everything have blurred together to create a warped reality around me, enough that I'm off of my game the same as Kevin is. It's not good.

"So cloning parts are easily found within this search radius." Mandy's voice sliced through the slight silence that had settled into the space. "Easily traceable and I can tag it for tracking purposes if Bryce can snag me the right equipment for a rig." I made sure to watch and listen carefully. "Now all I'll need is a ride to all these places and for someone to grab Bryce for me so I can get him a list of what I need." She pushed a few stray strands of her long blonde hair behind on ear. "Kev, think you can get him on the line for me?"

"Already got him," called Melody over one shoulder from where she now stood in our little makeshift living room. She stood between the couch and the coffee table that we had put in the center of the living space. "Shoot me off some parts."

"He'll need the physical list," said my favorite little blondie, automatically shoving her list of cloning parts aside and sending papers scattering across the floor. Mandy didn't look back. "Pen and paper ready?"

Melody nodded. "Just shoot it off to me and I'll fire it through to him," she said as Kevin and I were going to clean up all the files that Mandy had sent to the floor in her moment of being a complete scatterbrain. She's such a twit sometimes... And I love how she talks about information like it's a bullet from the barrel of a gun. Almost entertaining for me.

Mandy was automatically caught up in her technology and weapon systems. She was firing off a list of things that she would need and how much of it she would need to create tracking devices on cloning pieces in the entire city of New York. She was listing things off on her fingers effortlessly, chemicals and wires entering her brain faster than she could process it all, ending up in her spluttering over words and biting her tongue repeatedly.

"Sometimes I wonder if all this is really real," I told Kevin as he grabbed the last few sheets of white that had sprawled across the ground. "It almost feels like a dream half the time." I stood up, dropping my armful of papers onto the countertop.

Kevin grinned and I watched him rise to his feet as well, pressing all his papers into an organized stack before putting them down. "More like a sick, twisted nightmare." He leaned against the island, eyes watching the girls intently as Mandy said something only to have Melody repeat it right back into the phone to Carson. "This is Hell, man."

I shook my head and smiled right back at him, my eyes skimming over Mandy's well-built body as she was walking and talking, the youngest member of our little crew struggling to keep up with her rapid pace. "It's only Hell because you've seen Heaven," I corrected while pointing a finger at him, my eyes never leaving Mandy. "For those of us who have only seen Hell, this right here is Heaven."

"Pfft," was his response and he grabbed at the papers I had been looking at before everything went a little haywire in my head for a few moments. When Mandy had interrupted the silence, my head had cleared up. "Don't go metaphorical on me, please. It makes you look more ridiculous than you already do," Kevin finished, flipping through photographs as if one of them would speak to him and tell him what was really going on with the Knights.

I slugged his shoulder and he came back at me by poking my face. So I grabbed his shirt and pushed him against the counter and pinned one of my elbows into his back to keep him there before clenching one hand into a fist and giving him the best noogie ever. Because he was like a little brother to me. I had missed him and I didn't want to let him go again. Not ever. I would miss these days. I always would.

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**A/N: Please review! Again, sorry about the length!**

**~Sky**


	9. Out

**A/N: Ahhhh, I wanted to get a chapter of this up forever ago, but I keep on getting sidetracked. And with school back in session, I'm getting less time to write. So I'll update as much as I can when I can. Anyways, onto the story. Kevin's POV.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kevin. I own pretty much everyone else. Except for Gwen where she's mentioned.**

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_'And we're all starin'_  
_Down the barrel of a gun_  
_So if your life flashed before you,_  
_What would you wish you would've done?'_  
_~'Live Like We're Dying', Kris Allen_

**Out**

"Alright," said Mandy as Melody was about to wrap up the phone call to Bryce. "He's got the list of things I wanted." Her chocolate eyes were watching me and Carson. "As soon as I get my material, I'll be busy with my rigs. When I finish up with that, I'll need you boys to start planting them so we can trace it since the abductions don't really follow suit with Knight operations. That, and all of these guys had gang ties with turf wars."

"Outside of Knight territory," I added, holding up a few sheets. "They're not too much of a problem at this point. Kidnappings might involve the Knights, but odds are good that it's irrelevant."

Melody flipped her phone shut and crashed on the couch. "Let's hope. I don't want to have to start tracking people too. That list was ridiculous." Her form was hidden behind the battered cushions of our practically squashed couch.

"We wouldn't know who to track anyways," pointed out Mandy, going into our mini-fridge and digging out a bottle of water. "Too many people in the city. Targets could be anyone, although the idea was a good one." She screwed off the cap and downed a bit of the bottle.

"Plus the fact that it's ridiculously hard to even consider getting very far with tracking someone and miraculously keeping the bug hidden even after a pat down." Carson was leaned over the table, poring over papers again, flipping through files of technology that I knew he wouldn't understand in the slightest. "The Knights aren't stupid anymore. They know what they're doing."

This got me to pause. "And how did they suddenly get smarter?" I asked, looking at Carson and Mandy since they were the only two faces I could see; Melody was still sprawled out on the couch.

Mandy and Carson exchanged puzzled looks. "Huh?" asked Mandy bluntly, not understanding my question fully. By the raised eyebrow that Carson was giving me, I could tell he didn't get it either.

"They were easy last time I saw them," I said pointedly. "We beat them without even trying. Now, they're smart. How? What happened in the time I was gone? They switch leaders? Suddenly infiltrated something and got more intel?" My gaze flitted between their faces. "What's the deal?"

Mandy put her elbow on the table and then put her chin in her hand. "I don't know," she said, voice drifting off slightly, a sign that meant she was going to be thinking. With her, that sometimes took a while. Her muddy eyes glazed over slightly as she began to run through memories and thoughts.

Carson reached behind him and grabbed a pencil out of a cup that we kept a few in. He flipped a piece of paper over and began scrawling words on it in his chicken-scratch handwriting. "They're smarter as in better weapons, more strategy, and more of them in general." The pencil kept leaving behind words in a shade of gray that was scarcely legible. "I think you're onto something." Carson didn't even look up at me. Instead, he kept doodling words and small sketches onto the blank side of the page that he had been holding earlier.

"And they're smart enough to know who to get out of the ring to be able to win." Melody poked her head over the edge of the couch, folding her arms on the back of the cushion to make a sort of pillow to rest her head on. "They're planning now instead of running in blindly. And trying to extort people." Her white hair was falling to one side of her face, the white on the other side pushed behind one ear. "It's like the whole organization suddenly grew a brain."

Something had just clicked in my head. "Or gained a vital member." I took the missing persons files away from Carson (he didn't even notice) and began to shuffle through them, looking for a criminal record and a college degree in something that had ties to war or combat. "Something had to have changed for them to get a hold of this sort of skill. People don't just suddenly get smarter."

Out of her dreamlike state, Mandy gave a little cough and stared at me the way an older sister would. A knowing smirk was pressed to her face.

"Shut up," I said with a little laugh, still filing through papers. "Call Bryce if you could and see if he can find anyone who just vanished. Maybe not a missing person, but someone with a criminal record who's out and suddenly behind on payments or something." My eyes kept skimming over pages and pages of information; Carson was helping since he finished with his sketches and all.

Melody groaned, but grudgingly began to get to work on it, heading towards the room that she would now share with Mandy on one side of our little hideaway. Her phone was instantly out and dialing Bryce's number.

"I should probably head out to get food or something," said Mandy, standing up straight again to recompose herself. "Cupboards are bare, and Kev's back." Another little smirk crept across her face and she moved over towards the opening that led out of our little home.

I stuck my tongue out at her and she slugged my shoulder. You wouldn't know it, but the girl's stronger than she looks.

"And I gotta find a ride." Carson ran a hand through his messy blonde locks; his ocean blue eyes looked out the opening to see a glimpse of the emerald paint job that covered my car. I was considering painting over that just so we could drive around the city without getting shot at every day. "I'll grab my cash and we can head out together, Mand."

She just gave a simple little "m'kay" and wandered over to the couch, jumping over the back and landing perfectly with her feet at one end and her head at the other.

The life I had before was so simple. Fight for your life, rob a bank once or twice a day, come home, eat a corndog, chill with the crew, sleep, live another day. Nothing was ever this complicated. The crime fighting was just a thing, never of any serious importance. But now the Knights were capable of more despite just being an oversized gang. Alien technology over level three was involved and now things were getting bloody. We wouldn't let them take our streets.

I looked to Melody who was pacing with the phone pressed fo her ear with her shoulder. Her hands were working with a pen and notepad as she scrawled down a list of names.

It reminded me of Gwen. I had to call her. For real. I was supposed to call forever ago, but then we got wrapped up in all the working and Gwen had been left in the dust. Not like I'd done it on purpose. I was busy...

Carson emerged from the room we were going to share again with a wad of hundreds in his hand, folded neatly and wrapped tightly with a rubber band like he always kept his money. "Let's head," he said after shoving the wad into his jacket pocket. "Sun's going down and that's the worst time fo be out and without cover."

"Got the fake IDs?" I asked, wanting to make sure he didn't buy a car with his real ID. Then we'd be tracked and that would end in disaster.

He patted his back pocket. "Got it, man. Don't stress." Carson offered Mandy one hand. She took it and he hauled her off the couch. "We can catch the bus above and hit the dealership then the store. You'll have to let us in since I don't have a connection to the pulley system that rigs the fence."

"Cool. I'll cover it." I began to shove the papers into folders, picking up the kitchen area so they had a place to put the fresh food when they got back.

"Bryce is on it," came Mel's voice as she opened the door. "Said he'll get back to us in the morning." Her lithe form appeared once more, black eyes glittering vivaciously. "I'll keep my phone on in case he calls sooner, but he's back at his place already, heading out to get your equipment from his dealer. Bethany and Amanda won't pick him up until tomorrow morning so he can get to work on their systems for us."

Carson sighed slightly before hooking his fingers into the wall and dragging himself off the ground, feet finding the holds that had been carved into the stone. "Fair enough," he muttered before disappearing above ground where the dying sunlight washed in, gold stretching across the floor.

"We'll be back soon," said Mandy before taking a few footholds and handholds until she could reach Carson's outstretched hand so he could pull her above into the calm of the real world. The last I saw of her face was a playful little smile.

Melody leaned on the counter, picking up the bottle of water Mandy had left behind and taking a few sips from it. "So what's wrong? You're clearly distracted." When I looked up, I could see her obsidian eyes analyzing my face like I was some sort of science experiment. "Something's on your mind, but your not sure how you feel about it yet. Something's definitely wrong."

She always had been able to read me like an open book. I tossed the now organized folders on the counter behind me next to the cup of pencils and pens. "A little pissed that you guys won't let me call Ben and Gwen. If they were here, there wouldn't be a need for trackers or any of this work. We'd already be done, and I'd be at home with my mom." I folded my arms across my chest, watching the ground at my feet instead of looking at her directly.

Melody didn't respond for a few minutes. When she did, she asked a question instead of just saying something like a normal person would. "Have you heard of that poem about the world ending in fire or ice?"

I had to go through my memory banks to remember exactly. But I vaguely remembered something of the sorts. The same author wrote the thing about the two roads in the woods too, I think. Maybe. I wasn't completely sure, but whatever. "What about it?" I asked, my question answering hers as well as voicing my own.

"The world will end either way, right? No matter whether its fire or ice, the world will be dead." I looked up to see that her gaze was intent on me and that she was completely focused, something that wasn't uncommon for her. Melody's hands were tight around the water bottle that she held. "That's the situation here. Whether it's just us or us and your friends, we're all going to die either way." Not even the slightest smile played on her lips. "I don't even know why we're trying. The world is coming to an end and that's that. Nothing we can do about it." Again, she screwed the cap off the water bottle and downed a bit of it. "Might as well wipe our hands off and walk away. We're done for no matter what."

I once more stared at my shoes. She didn't know what she was talking about. Ben and Gwen could save New York... couldn't they? I mean, they were the greatest fighters I knew. The Highbreed invasion seemed impossible too, but they stopped that. If they were here, they would've known what to do.

Melody and I were silent again for a few more moments. Maybe she was right and the world really was going to end. I didn't know.

And that was when the whole place shook with the heavy blast of an explosion.

My first thoughts were Carson and Mandy. And by the way Melody's face was automatically scared, she had had the same thoughts I did.

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**A/N: Longer than it looked when I was writing it on my iTouch. Weird. Anyways, please review! Thanks to all the readers out there who are reviewing! Love all of you!**

**~Sky**


	10. Aftermath

**A/N: Well, I'm a little upset that the last episode wasn't better. It was great on the humor scale, but the plots and such were… sketchy. Too much politics, not enough smashing. And this is coming from a girl who isn't very fond of fight scenes. But George was back. Anyone know when the next episode is on?**

**Disclaimer: I own Melody, Carson, and Mandy. Kevin's POV.**

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_'I'll sing for the broken-hearted,  
I'll sing for the dreams that won't come true.  
And the music won't stop playin',  
And tonight I'll sing for you  
I'll dream about the place we started,  
Hold on to the past I can't undo.  
But the music kept on playin',  
And tonight we sing for you.'  
~'Sing for You', Honor Society_

**Aftermath**

When you hear a bomb shake the ground overhead, you know something serious is going on. It's a given, no questions asked. You just know that something went wrong or that something is wrong. It's something that everyone knows. Or at least something everyone _should _know.

That, and you don't forget the quake of a bomb once you feel it the first time. I'd adapted well enough to all the explosions that take out the city that we lived under. The good news was that our little underground safe house was protected from the blast. The world had been shaken up, but our ceiling had remained still and intact.

Carson and Mandy had taught us the normal procedures for bombs in the city. They'd drilled it into us like they were army generals. And, well, they were. Carson led our little army with Mandy as his right-wing woman. She was always there with a fun new "toy" in hand, ready to fight to defend her turf and our lives with her own. Those two were a dangerous duo. If anyone looked dangerous, it was them. I was only a drudge in the group, the enforcer. And our little con-artist, seductive tool, and local street musician was Melody. She could pass herself off as anyone and everyone, going undercover one minute to being a deadly weapon the next, ready to attack in a heartbeat.

We were trained by the best of the best. Mandy and Carson meant more to us than the world. They were mentors, parents, siblings, family, leaders. They were our lives.

The first thing Melody did was give me a long look. Her black eyes zeroed in on mine and horror wrote itself across her face, her lower lip beginning to quiver. The sheer idea of them being gone in a fiery blast...

Well, for me, it was like watching them die all over again. Except this time, we couldn't see them as they burned. I wouldn't see them cry, I wouldn't see them fall, I wouldn't see the flames consume their flesh. No, not this time. This time it had been fast, a job well done. A slow fire can induce more pain, but it also makes the end result less reliable. An explosion, however...

I was charging for the entrance until Melody got her tiny hands wrapped around my bicep. She stopped me just long enough to say, "Kevin, it's over!" Her voice was shaking and quaking, fear clear in her tone. She was terrified. "They're up there! It's done!"

I looked over my shoulder after pausing to see her scared face, that same scared, lonely face that had first made me pick her up off the streets. Her dark eyes were spilling fresh sapphire tears. They streamed down her porcelain cheeks; trails of diamond-like moisture were left behind. Her white hair hung around her face like curtains of ivory, shielding some of her face from me, but it was easy to tell that she was in as much pain as I was over this loss. "It's done," she said again, a slight sob racking her thin, fragile body. "They're gone."

My head still wasn't on straight, but I knew better than to leave us out in the open. Part of me was dead on the inside. I'd just lost my siblings, my family, the two who had trained me to be one of the most feared criminals in the business. They meant more to me than anyone would ever imagine. More to me than Gwen. Because they'd been the ones to lead me to her. They'd been the reason I'd had to leave her behind in Bellwood. "Come on." I took Melody's hand and tugged her into the side rooms, watching her eyes grow dim and dark as she began to cry harder. Tears still stained her cheeks.

Quickly and quietly, I bent down and moved around some of the boxes that had been under the beds so that they were all under one. Money, identities, license plates, and wallets were stashed in my boxes. The other stash was Carson's. I had no clue what he kept in his. Once there was enough space, I ushered Melody under and let her get comfortable in the cramped space before shifting myself below the makeshift bed as well.

It's decent for one person, but it's a bit crowded for two. The bed frame is just a plank on top of two sideways plants with some nails in 'em. They were probably only three feet off the ground, tops. Then there was the issue of the boards on the sides which were only about four feet apart and then the width of the plank on top was only about two and a half feet. We only made due with what we had. All our real cash for good stuff went into Mandy's weapons and the two cars we had.

I shouldered my way under to curl in beside Melody, glad that she was so tiny. Otherwise, there was no way in Hell we would've fit under there. Her lithe frame only took up maybe a third of the space, leaving enough for me to at least sit there comfortably with my knees tucked to my chest. It wasn't horrible, but it was hard.

The drill was that you sit down there until you know it's safe or for three days, whichever came sooner. Mandy and Carson never came back down. We waited three days.

We couldn't move from the little room, that was a rule. That was why we kept trail mix taped to the bottom of our beds or against the walls. I was grateful that we still had something left going for us. Carson had been nice enough to make sure that he had a fresh bag on the underside of his bed for us. We were lucky. My trail mix was probably at least eight months old, probably already expired if that's possible for trail mix.

Melody didn't talk much. She curled up and kept her head tucked to my body, arms wrapped around herself as if she was trying to keep all the pain in with a hug. When she wasn't completely silent, she was muttering words, singing little songs with no real power behind them. I knew her songs by heart because I had heard them a few too many times, but these were just old nursery rhymes. They meant nothing.

I was working out on how to deal with my inner demons. I was so pissed that I wanted to strangle someone, so pissed that I was ready to jump out of our hideaway and go slaughter some Knights in their sleep. They couldn't take away my family without losing some of their own. I had to figure that they'd lost at least one of their own in the process of blowing up my siblings, but that wasn't enough for me. I was out for blood, and they should've known that from the start.

New York wasn't a place for rookies. No one should've been playing games on those streets. It was life or death, risk it all, do or die. Either someone was going to emerge from the battlefield victorious, or we were all going down in smoke and flames. One way or another, New York was turning into the Hell I'd escaped in the Null Void. It wasn't even a city anymore. It was a war zone.

But Melody and I hid, pain ebbing away our thoughts of peace until we were numb to the idea of not hitting. Three days of complete solitude, unsure of Mandy and Carson's survival. They'd left us with a taste for blood and just one more reason to want it. We were like starved wolves. Or at least I was. Melody just cried.

Three days passed under the bed. We lived off of the trail mix under my bed and the bag under Carson's. We were lucky mine hadn't expired yet. The glory of trail mix is so understated.

I was hungry for revenge after crawling out from under that bed. My muscles ached from sitting still for so long, my shoulder screaming as I moved them for the first time in days. I reached down and took Melody's hand to pull her out from our hiding spot as her dark eyes glowed red from all her crying. The whiteness in them was bloodshot and wet streaks still painted her pale face. But she took my hand and allowed me to pull her out. Three days had fared her better than they had me. She was still agile, still able to move. My arms were tight from being so crowded in the tiny space.

"Now what?" she asked, one delicate hand reaching up to stroke trails left by diamond-like tears.

"We fight our way out of it just like we always do." I was even struggling to keep a brave face. The heartache of losing them was just too raw to be ignored yet. "We've got our sources. We've got our arsenal. Now all we need to do is find the main target that we have to hit." My vision was blurred by fiery hot tears. And I thought I was staying strong. Until I started to sound like Carson. And it just made me miss him all over again. He was family...

"I've got a pretty good idea of where we can hit," she murmured, wiping away her own tears before reaching up with a delicate, soft hand to wipe away mine. Melody's face recomposed itself quickly enough as she sniffled and straightened her shoulders. "They wanted you, remember?"

What could I do but nod? I did.

A thin, timid smile placed itself on her features. "Then let's give them what they want."

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**A/N: Shorter, but it felt longer when I wrote it. I'm happy with this. So review please!**

**~Sky**


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